


Molly Mouse

by Crystalwren



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Advent Calendar, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 09:09:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalwren/pseuds/Crystalwren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, only one thing was stirring: it was a mouse.</p><p>Mycroft bumps into Molly, quite literally, and then proceeds to rip out her heart. But they're both about to discover that even the most timid of mice can bite, hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Molly Mouse

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 221b Advent Calendar challenge on LJ.

_"Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.” - Ronald Regan_

 

It certainly was very posh.

Molly looked around the café with nervous pleasure. It was decorated in a fashionable minimalist theme, with chrome and glass tables and black leather seats. On the menu there were elaborate drinks and dishes that she’d only vaguely heard about in magazines and movies. The breakfast crowd, of which she was a member, were all expensively and tastefully attired in designer brands. Each woman in the café carried a handbag that was probably worth at least half of her entire wardrobe combined.

Molly adjusted her lovely new silk blouse, far more expensive than she’d ever thought she could afford, and forced herself not to fidget. The generous pay rise she’d received had been completely unexpected but so very wonderful. Wonderful enough for her to throw frugality to the winds and buy new clothes, and just this once buy pastries and coffee that ordinarily would be far out of her budget. She didn’t fit in here, but then she didn’t fit in anywhere. And there was no way she could afford to come here even once a week; it was far too expensive, and after all she had Mum to take care of. But as a treat it was so nice that she was flushed with pleasure.

“Excuse me,” a woman muttered as she brushed past, paper cup in hand. It was still very crowded, but there was a lot less shoving than the places she usually went to. It might be better manners, but the cynic in Molly suggested that it probably had more to do with worry over damaging Dolce and Gabbana clothes and Jimmy Choo shoes. Regardless, it was still pleasant not to have to worry about getting stepped on by tradesmen and junior office workers stressed out of their minds over pay cuts and the economic downturn.

And suddenly, a wild Mycroft appeared!

A dapper-looking, older gentleman in an immaculate suit stepped in front of her, holding his cup coffee in front like a talisman as he tried to navigate his way out of the line. At the same time, someone behind her gave her a rude shove forward. Molly and the gentleman collided in a damp shower of coffee, and just like that, her pretty new blouse and lovely morning was ruined. Molly could do nothing but stand there and squeak wordlessly.

“I’m so, so sorry,” the gentleman said. He pulled a white handkerchief and made a motion as if to dab it on the stains. Molly squeaked again and fled.

Molly was used to humiliation on a daily basis, virtually since she could walk. She was used to having her inadequacies being thrown back as her, but this was a whole new low. At least the bathroom in the café was just as swanky as the rest of it; it didn’t smell, or at least too badly compared to the lower class equivalents. But it was horrible, standing at the basin in her bra was she frantically tried to wash the coffee from her blouse. Just once in her life it looked like some small part of the universe was not against her; the fabric was an antique shade of amber. Maybe it wouldn’t stain, or if it did, it wouldn’t show as much. She was so absorbed in washing, scrubbing with the hand soap that she jumped when someone behind her cleared their throat.

“Sorry,” said the woman apologetically, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“That’s…that’s okay,” Molly said, “You want to wash your hands, right? I’ll just finish up.” Hurriedly she wrung out the blouse and tugged it on still wet.

“No, no,” The woman smiled awkwardly and held out a coat. “The gentleman out front asked me to give this too you.”

Molly stared at it, mind embarrassingly empty. Then it clicked; it belonged to the man who had spilled his drink over her. “I don’t need-” she started to say, but then the woman pointedly glanced down. Molly followed her gaze; the thin silk clung wetly to her bra, and showed every detail of the lacy cups. Molly looked wildly around for a hand dryer. There was one in the corner, complete with a discrete little notice saying that it was out of order. The woman offered the coat again and this time Molly took it.

“Well, goodbye,” the woman said, and whirled around and marched out the door. Molly shrugged on the coat. It smelt subtly and pleasantly of a men’s cologne as she dabbed helplessly at the ruins of her mascara. Eventually, however, she had to admit defeat. It was a losing war, and she gave up, tugged the coat securely around herself, and stepped back outside into the café.

The dapper man was waiting for her. As soon as he saw her, he rushed forward and seized her hand, babbling apologies. “So dreadfully sorry,” he said, “Really I am.”

“It’s quite all right,” Molly said with an effort. She blinked dazedly. “I should give you this back,” she added, tugging at the coat. Then she remembered that the blouse underneath was saturated and see through, and flushed.

“Keep it, I insist,” the man told her, “Or at least allow me to escort you to where you can, er, change.” He trailed off, looking awkward.

“You’re very kind.”

“Not at all.” He offered his arm. Molly flushed again, but this time with pleasure. It was such an old-fashioned gesture that she suddenly felt charmed. “Shall we?” Molly placed her hand in the crook of his elbow, and together they walked toward the exit.

“Um,” she said timidly, “I don’t know your name.”

“My name is Mycroft.”

She ended up calling in late to work.

 

**

 

When she came home, one of Mum’s postcards was waiting for her. On it was a picture of a young girl dressed as Red Riding Hood; on the back was a message scribbled in a hand that had once been beautiful, but had degraded slowly and steadily as the dementia progressed. It read:

_To my lovly daughter Molly,_

_I saw this and thought of you. She looks so much like you did at this age. so beautiful! The movie is very strange but very poetc. When she walks through the forest her red cap is so bright. She burns like fire._

Molly stopped reading for a moment, thumbing at her eyes. Ever since she had moved to London she and her mother had swapped cards backward and forward. It was something that they’d always done, because they both knew that while phone calls were wonderful, they couldn’t be held in the hands. With the postcards there was a certain pleasure of having something that the other had touched. But as Mum’s illness had started and slowly progressed, her cards had become odd, strangely sweet and heartbreaking.

_I watched the movie this was at the end:_

_“Little girl, this seems to say, never stop upon yur way. Never trust a stranger-friend; no oneknows how it wil end. Thn, as now, is simple truth. sweetest tongue hath sharpest tooth.”_

That was _not_ something that Mum had written. Molly frowned, absently putting the postcard to her mouth and nibbling at a corner. The handwriting was perfect and the strategically-placed spelling and grammatical mistakes only added to the believability. It was hard to say why, but she always knew. Always. Somehow, some way. It was him. Somehow, yet again, _he_ had hijacked the post and added his own little amendment to her mother’s message.

 _He_ was Sherlock, of course. It always was.

She turned the card over again and looked at the title on the front. It read, ‘The Company of Wolves’. Before she quite knew it, she had her coat on and was halfway to the door. She had a video store to visit and a movie to watch.

When she got back she found that her cat, Toby, collapsed and in an untidy heap in the corner. Between the frantic dash to the vet and being told that there was a tumour pressing down on Toby’s spine, no hope of treatment or recovery, and holding her little baby in her arms as the vet slid the needle into the large vein on the inside of his back leg, she utterly forgot about the DVD she’d rented and shoved carelessly on a bookshelf.

 

**

 

Toby’s death pushed Molly in a black fog of depression.

Sooner or later, everyone left her. Her Dad had died when she was still a baby, her Pop had died when she was still in high school. She had an aunt and some cousins, but years ago Auntie had argued with Mum, and so Molly’s interaction with that side of the family was always perfunctory and on Auntie’s part, grudging. Her cousins were much younger than her but were growing up, and she knew that they laughed at her behind her back, laughed at her smeared lipstick and perpetually frazzled nerves. Mum was slipping further and further away every day. Even Sherlock left her. For a very short time she’d thought that Jim might be The One, but, well, look how that had turned out.

She was so alone she hated it. She hated it when people left her. That was why she’d decided to go into the mortuary; she had thought that it would let her spend more time with them, but she’d quickly realised that whatever had made them people in the first place was long gone.

Three films into a Jane Austin marathon, Molly was thoroughly sick of it all. She was sick of sitting in the flat all by herself, wishing that she was Elizabeth Bennet being courted by Mr Darcy. Besides, she’d used all of her tissues, and they were all soggy. She nodded firmly to herself and turned off the television. She was going to clean herself up, put on some makeup on and make another attempt at that posh café . It was Sunday; maybe it would be less crowded. Besides, she hadn’t been able to wear that lovely new amber blouse of hers which, by some miracle, hadn’t been stained at all.

The café was less crowded, but only slightly. Molly ordered, took her number and headed towards a small two seater table. In her hand, she clutched a neat little notebook. She was going to write while she ate; she’d surely look like someone who wanted to be alone with her thoughts, as opposed to being someone who was just alone.

Suddenly, she was jostled as someone walked into her. This time, however, Molly was prepared. She jumped sharply to the side, just in time to avoid being coffee yet again splashed on her blouse. It get on her skirt though, but that was okay because it was black. Strangely, even as the hot wet sank through the material and onto her thigh, she felt suddenly and perversely proud; for once messy, scatter-brained Molly was not going to get her clothes stained. As she heard a familiar voice start babbling apologies, she found herself smiling.

“Hello, Mycroft,” she said.

“Molly!” A broad grin crossed his face. “How wonderful to see you! But, ah, I appeared to have done it again.” He looked down at his empty cup and then back at her apologetically.

“It’s all right,” she told him, “This’ll wash straight out.”

They stand there awkwardly, trying to figure out what to say next. Finally, they’re forced to step aside when a waiter, murmuring apologies, tried to slip past.

“Would…would you like to join me?” Mycroft said hesitantly.

“I’d love to!” Molly blushed, realising that she’d been a bit too forceful. Definitely too strong. She didn’t want to sound desperate. “I mean,” she tried again, “That would be lovely. Just let me was up first.”

They spend an hour talking. Brunch was forgotten, evolving smoothly into lunch. Mycroft turned down the desert menu afterwards, but watched her eat a slice of pecan pie with such avarice that she flagged down a waitress and asked for another fork. They shared the sticky sweet, although she found it vaguely troubling that Mycroft meticulously ate to a precise half centimetre to where she’d already taken a bite, like he was afraid of contagion. Although she supposed that it was only to be expected, given that the man was so meticulous in, well, everything, really.

“So what brings you here,” he finally asked as the last of the dirty crockery was cleared away.

“I just needed to get out of my flat for a bit.”

“Oh? You’re bored?”

“No, no,” she says embarrassedly, “My…my cat died. I felt lonely.” She shrugged, trying to make it look like she wasn’t as utterly gutted as she was. Silly Molly, mooning over a pet!

“That’s terrible,” Mycroft told her. His gaze fixed firmly on her mouth. For one heart-stopping instant she thought that he was actually going to kiss her, but all that happened was his finger darting quickly against the corner of her mouth. “Crumb,” he said apologetically, and Molly brushed her face in embarrassment. “We do tend to get attached to these things, don’t we?”

“Yes, I suppose we do.” She brightened at the thought that they might have something in common. “Do you have pets?”

“Not for a long time,” he said, shaking his head. “I have a fish tank in my office but fish aren’t really pets, are they? They’re not exactly something you can pick up and,” a slight, odd-looking smile briefly crossed his face, “Cuddle. Are they?”

“I wouldn’t know,” her face pinked at this, and she looked away, onto the street. “I’ve never had them.”

There was a brief silence.

“I had a dog once,” Mycroft finally said quietly, as though he was telling her a secret. “It was a Pomeranian. It was my grandmother’s, or was until she died.” Molly opened her mouth to tell him how sorry she was to hear it, but he spoke over the top of her before she could say anything. “One day I walked into the garden to find it dead, blood all over the grass. And blood all over my brother too. He’d cut it open, you see, but he was only six and his motor control was poor, hence all the mess. Oh, don’t worry, he didn’t kill it,” he hastily reassured her, as she gaped in horror, “It’d died some hours previous. Quietly, as it slept. The man who came to look at it said that there’d been something wrong with its heart. One thing I have to allow my brother,” Mycroft mused, “Was that he never went in for animal cruelty. He’d take full advantage if they were already dead, of course, because for a long time he was extremely interested in anatomy. However, to be honest with you, I’ve never quite forgiven him for that day. And I probably never will.”

“I…I can see why,” Molly said dazedly. She was perfectly fine with dead people, but a single squashed squirrel could have her in tears. In university, the absolute worst thing was that she’d had to do animal dissection. “It sounds terrible.”

“It was,” Mycroft agreed, “But I’ve since seen a lot worse. I must confess I was relieved when he switched his interest to chemistry. At least, I was up until the point he started manufacturing incendiaries. I was even more concerned when he moved through that to making illicit drugs. Although mercifully, he opted to skip over the poisons.”

“He sounds…” Molly tried to find the right word, “He sounds challenging.”

“He was that.”

“Was? Oh. You mean he died?” Instantly she felt blood rush to her face. “I’m sorry, that sounded awful, I’m terrible with words.”

“It’s fine,” Mycroft said curtly. Molly’s mouth snapped shut so fast her teeth clicked together. “It’s fine,” Mycroft said again, but softer this time. “He… left. Some months ago.”

He trails off. They sat in awkward silence for a while, until Molly shook off her daze and stood.

“Well, thank you for a lovely meal,” she smiled timidly.

“You’re leaving so soon?”

“Yes, yes, I’ve-” a stack of soppy DVDs to return, she thought but did not say, “A lot of chores to run.”

“Of course,” Mycroft smiled thinly, “Myself also, come to think of it.”

“Well, goodbye,” she attempted to say, but he ran straight over the top of her.

“Have dinner with me.”

“What?”

“Dinner. With me. On Friday night, if you’re not busy.”

Without knowing why, Molly felt a thin trickle of unease down her spine. But the prospect of yet another Friday night alone loomed blackly ahead of her, and then Mycroft took her hand and gallantly kissed the back of it. “My mother taught me how to treat a woman well. Have dinner with me, do.”

Molly pinked despite her misgivings. When he asked for her phone number, she gave it to him.

**

Halfway through the week, another of Mum’s postcards arrived. It was a rather dramatic and no little gruesome-looking one, a _National Geographic_ card labelled, ‘Denizens of the Deep’. Heaven only knew how Mum had gotten her hands on it; in the nursing home, pictures like this were usually kept out of the way of dementia patients, on the grounds that images of angler fish and black swallower fish and other nightmarish beasties were just too disturbing for those with more fragile minds.

On the back was a confused but rather lyric ramble about lights in the deep sea and beacons through the darkness followed, Molly saw with a certain sense of annoyance, by a slightly more detailed and precise description of just how exactly an anglerfish set about catching prey. Thank you, Sherlock, Molly thought, for that educational little addition.

 

**

 

Friday afternoon. Molly was just finishing her shift. She had arranged to take off early, and have plenty of time to get ready for her date with Mycroft.

At this point, everything went to hell.

A dramatic and ridiculously violent encounter between a packed bus and a tanker full of petrol turned into an inferno on the motorway; bad enough that it’d happened at all, but this was in the middle of a traffic jam, and suddenly the morgue was crowded with crispy corpses stacked three deep thick. And some of them were children.

By the time Molly stopped running it was late. Every staff member had been called in, even the one who’d been on maternity leave. All of them were emotionally and mentally wrecked. The younger staff were in tears, and some of the older ones too. Even the head pathologist looked like he’d done a personal tour of Hell. And the morgue was so full that cadavers had been sent to mortuaries all over London. There’s only so many bodies that you can shove into a meat locker. What

Molly looked at the clock and thought hard about just cancelling everything. But the images of the babies were burned underneath her eyelids, and she knew that she just couldn’t be alone right now.

She dashed off a quick text to Mycoft, and headed home to shower and dress at breakneck speed.

When she finally got to the restaurant it was an hour and a half after the time they’d originally decided on. She’d told Mycroft she’d be here about now, but she was acutely conscious that her hair was messily clipped up and her makeup was less than perfect. And she was underdressed for this place; since the disastrous Christmas with Sherlock, she’d learned that underdressed was so much more acceptable than overdressed, but she hadn’t realised just how posh this restaurant really was. There was a deep sense of foreboding as she stepped inside, but she couldn’t be alone just now. She really couldn’t.

Taking a deep breath, she forced a smile over her gritted teeth. When the Maitre approached she nervously squeaked out Mycroft’s name.

“Ah, you must be Mademoiselle Molly!” The man’s French accent was annoyingly, gratingly appalling and fake. When well, Molly’s Mum had been an ardent Francophile; Molly had spent a great amount of time in France growing up; she knew a French accent when she heard it, and that wasn’t it. Suddenly, strangely she felt like bursting into tears; but then the fake Frenchman whipped out an orchid corsage from behind his little podium and presented it to her. She took it timidly, trying to figure out what it was for. “Monsieur Mycroft asked that it be given to you,” the Maitre d’ explained. Before Molly quite knew it the corsage was fixed around her wrist and she was being ushered firmly towards a little table set discretely away from the others.

“You made it,” Mycroft said, standing to greet her.

“Thank…thank you for the flowers,” Molly awkwardly trailed off. The Maitre bustled away and Mycroft pulled out her chair like a true gentleman. She felt more self-conscious than ever as she looked at the creases in Mycroft’s trousers. They looked sharp enough to cut. So did Mycroft’s smile.

“They suit you,” Mycroft told her. He handed her the menu. “I recommend the salmon.”

“You come here a lot?”

“Yes. For business.”

“Oh.” She fidgeted, stroking at the edge of the orchid on her wrist. “What do you do?”

He raised his eyebrows. “I never said? I work in security and surveillance. Yourself?”

She laughed nervously. “I’ve never told you either, have I? I work…” In a morgue, slicing up people that had been burned to death in horrific traffic accidents.  “…in terminal patient care.”

“That sounds terrible. Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Sometimes, but what I do is important and… it’s interesting.” She giggled nervously. “You meet the strangest people there.” Like criminal masterminds and brilliant madmen. “I’m really sorry I was late.”

“I don’t mind at all, really,” Mycroft told her. He smiled reassuringly, but underneath the charm there was a subtle hint of something not very nice. Then he reached out and very delicately, brushed the side of her hand. “After dinner, let’s have coffee together.”

There’s coffee and then there’s coffee. Molly did know the difference. Even awkward, clumsy her knew. And she also knew that it was a bad idea, for reasons that she couldn’t quite articulate. But even though the restaurant was full of the smells of posh perfumes and delicious food, all she could smell was burned meat.

“Coffee would be wonderful.”

She was glad that her flat was neat and clean. Someone as meticulous as Mycroft would never want to make love in an untidy room.

 

**

 

Mycroft was as attentive to detail in his love making as he was in the rest of his life. Molly lay on her side, aching pleasurably. He was stroking her side, scratching lightly at the places he’d kissed her. One thing that was distinctly unpleasant: a sore place on the back of her neck. As he’d came he’d shifted his weight, pressing her face down on the bed, biting her roughly until he’d stopped shuddering. And only then had he let her up.

It was jarring, lending a definite note of disturbance to the whole evening. Molly didn’t mind a little roughness on rare occasions, but that sort of thing really had to be discussed first.

“How about I make us some tea?” She suggested as he hummed and nuzzled at her hair. She slid away as he made a playful grab at her, fetching her dressing gown down from its hook and throwing it on. Mycroft lay back, squirming smugly against the mattress. He smiled at her, and she found herself wondering why she’d never before realised how bad his teeth were.

“I’ll put the pot on,” she said hastily, and shut the door carefully behind her.

This was a mistake. A big one. Sure, he’d been great in bed, but the more time she spent with him the more she realised that there was something not right with the man. She was needy, she knew that. Mousey, mousey Molly, always lonely, always looking for the perfect friend and lover. There was a familiarity to him that was hard to place but nagged at her like the pain from a stubbed toe.

The kettle clacked against the side of the sink as she filled it, because her hands had started to shake. She mouthed the words she was going to say to him. “A mistake…this was a mistake…it’s been a lovely evening but we’ve been moving too fast and…it’s all gone wrong.”

“What’s gone wrong?” Mycroft stepped through the doorway, shrugging on his coat. His suit was, as always, immaculate. He was fully dressed and she was naked underneath her dressing gown. Molly shrunk against the sink, clutching the kettle to herself like a talisman.

She felt like a prostitute, the client cleansing himself as soon as the act was done.

Firming her shoulders, Molly forced herself to stand upright. “This has. We’re moving too fast. I don’t normally do this sort of thing. Not on the first date.” She tried to force a laugh, but it came out as a nervous titter.

Mycroft regarded her coldly. “Then why did you invite me here?”

“I was upset,” she whispered. “All of those people. Those kids.”

“What people? What,” he spat the word like it was an obscenity, “Kids?”

She slammed the kettle down on the bench. “There was an accident on the motorway. A bus caught fire. A lot of people died. And I had to help with all of the bodies. Some of them were children.” Mycroft blinked at her in annoyed incomprehension. “Dead children, Mycroft. Burned to death. I work in a morgue. With dead people. Dead babies.”

“Wouldn’t you be used to it by now? Why should today be any different?” he snapped, and Molly’s blood went cold. Finally she was beginning to understand why it was that he seemed so perfect but disturbed her regardless.

There was something missing from this man. Something important.

“I think you should leave,” she whispered.

“Leave?”

“Yes, leave.”

Mycroft fixed her with a flat look of rage. “You’re throwing me out? You? Little Molly Hooper? Little mousey Hooper, whose best friend is her cat, and is so socially inept that she can only function amongst the deceased?” He advanced upon her, so terrifying that she could only clutch the edge of the bench and and cringe. His breath hit the side of her face as he delicately placed one arm either side of her, pinning her in a pseudo embrace.

“What do you want?” she whimpered.

“Tell me where he is.”

“What are you talking about?” But Molly knew damn well what Mycroft was talking about.

Sherlock, of course.

“My brother.”

“Brother?”

“My brother, little mouse.” Slowly he enunciated, “Sherlock. My brother, Sherlock Holmes. I know he’s alive. I know that you somehow helped him disappear. All of the people that he knew genuinely think he’s dead. But he’s alive and we both know it. And by process of elimination, you must be the one who knows something about what happened, where he went. If you know where he is, Miss Hooper, I strongly recommend that you tell me.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t, I swear!”

“Then where did all of those documents and photographs come from? The samples, the specimens, the bits and pieces in jars?”

“He made them! He showed me how and told me what to do with them.”

“I don’t believe you,” Mycroft snapped. In an exaggerated movement he lifted his arm to strike her. Molly burst into tears and tried to double over, but he was standing too close for her to move, and she wrapped her arms about her chest like it could protect her.

“It’s true,” she sniffled, “It’s true. I swear, it’s true.” Mycroft made as if he really was going to hit her, and she screamed, “It’s true!”

His lip curled in disgust. He stared at her like he was looking at some particularly revolting species of insect and stepped back. “Pathetic,” he breathed, shaking his head, “Absolutely pathetic.”

“I don’t know. I really don’t.”

He stared at her as she began to cry. “Fine,” he said at last. “I believe you. There’s no way you’d ever have the spine.”

“Please leave me alone. Please.”

“You have something that I want. I want Sherlock’s current location.”

“I’ll call the police!”

“Little mouse, I _own_ the police.” He snorted in contempt. With precise, angry gestures he straightened his cuffs. “All right Miss Hooper, I’ll leave you. But let me tell you something.” A nasty smile curled his mouth. “You’re absolutely terrible in bed.”

And he left. Walked away, left Molly sobbing her heart out on the kitchen floor.

She stayed there for a good hour, snuffling pathetically into the sleeve of her dressing gown. Her head was swimming. Just who was this man anyway? Fine, he did resemble Sherlock now that she thought of it, but only subtly, occasionally in his movements and expressions. “More data,” she found herself whispering, “More data.”

Clutching at the edge of the bench, she hauled herself to her feet and staggered to the telephone. Her hands shook uncontrollably as she thumbed through the little address book that she kept next to it. It took her several goes to get it right as she dialled the number, but at last it went through and, eventually, it was answered.

John Watson muttered a sleepy, confused hello. When Molly looked up at the clock she saw that it was in the early hours of the morning. “John,” she said sharply, “I need you to tell me if you know a man called Mycroft Holmes.” There was a dead silence from his end of the line. “John, just tell me.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Molly. Molly Hooper.” More silence. “I work at Saint Bart’s! You spent so much time in there, how can you not remember me?”

“I remember you,” John said wearily. “Calm down. Tell me what happened.”

“Mycroft happened, that’s what!”

There was a deep sigh from John’s end of the line. Finally he said, “If we’re talking about the same person, then yes, Mycroft Holmes is- or was- Sherlock’s brother. But Molly, it’s not a good thing to get involved with him. He’s very…high…up in the government and bad things can happen to people who cross him. What’s happene-” Molly slammed down the phone, cutting him off. Almost immediately, it started ringing as John tried to call her back. She ignored it and curled up in the foetal position instead, sobbing as her heart broke.

 

**

 

On Sunday morning Greg Lestrade hammered on her door, demanding her to let him in so he could check on her. He kept knocking and knocking and knocking until she hauled herself up and answered.

“Look, just fuck off, will you?” she said, and slammed the door shut in his face.

 

**

 

On Tuesday morning a postcard arrived, written in her mother’s distinctive style. But this one wasn’t from her mother, Molly realised. This one was all Sherlock, from start to finish.

It was an advertisement for the latest series of _Big Brother._ On it was a grainy picture of someone, blurred at the edges as if it were taken by a security camera. It read, with depressing predictability, “Big Brother is watching you.”

A strange sense of rage came over Molly. She tore the card to pieces, placed them in her mouth, chewed, and then swallowed.

 

**

 

“Molly!”

Molly jumped high in the air and whipped around. It was John Watson. “You scared me,” she scowled.

John eyed the scalpel that she absent-mindedly clutched. “Consider it paid in full,” he told her, stepping back and putting a few careful feet between them.

She glanced down, realised what she was holding, and set it down amongst the others. “I have to inventory these,” she said.

“Go right ahead,” said John with a thin smile, still holding his hands up in submission.

“How did you get in here? The administrators made all sorts of changes to the security recently. Something about body-snatching… well, I suppose you do have to worry about something like that if you’re in a morgue.” The metal rattled as she sorted through the instruments, making notes on a form as she went.

“I learned a few things from Sherlock.”

“Oh, of course,” sighed Molly, rolling her eyes.

“I’m worried about you.”

She stopped at that, and looked up. “Why?”

“Well, like I said, Mycroft Holmes really isn’t someone you want to get mixed up with.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.” John looked honestly confused. “Why,” Molly enunciated, “Are you worried about me?”

“Well… you’re my friend, yeah?”

“A friend? Really? A friend that you don’t even recognise when you hear them on the phone? You really have learned a few things from Sherlock, haven’t you?” Molly said bitterly.

John visibly flinched at that. “Okay. Maybe I deserved that.”

“Yes. You did.”

He was quiet for a few seconds, trying to figure out what to say next. Molly went back to counting her scalpels. Finally he said, “Let’s call me a friendly acquaintance. A concerned one.”

“Fine,” she snapped.

“Mycroft Holmes-”

“Is an utter bastard.”

“Tends to work to his own agenda-”

“He’s definitely a piece of work.”

“And he doesn’t really care who he has to hurt in the process.”

“No! Really?”

“Um,” John added articulately. Molly kept counting her scalpels. “Molly… what did he do to you?”

Metal clattered as her hands shook. She realised that she’d hopelessly lost count. Her eyes burned, and she shut them tight, trying not to cry. “Go away, John.”

“Is this… is this about Sherlock?”

“I said go away.”

“There’s a bite mark on the back of your neck.”

Molly barely stopped herself from raising her hand to touch it. She had not known it was there, but then, this was the first time she’d worn her hair up since she and Mycroft had had sex.

“Molly…did he…did he hurt you?”

“Yes, I think we established that.”

John looked oddly stricken. “He raped you?”

There was a humming, hissing noise in her ears. She gaped at him like a fish. And then, slowly, she blinked. “Mycroft Holmes did not rape me.” Her voice was calm and even, perfectly level. “No one raped me. I was not raped. Do you understand me?”

“It’s natural to say that sort of thing…”

“John,” Molly said flatly, “If I was raped, they’d be finding my body right about now, wrists slashed, gently decomposing in the bathtub. I was not raped.” Although she definitely did feel a very intense sense of violation, but never the less, the fact remained. “I was not raped.” She shut her eyes and took a dead breath. “I appreciate the thought, but you needn’t have bothered. I’m fine.”

“Well, if you say so…”

“I do.”

“If you ever need anything…”

“You won’t be the one I call, John. You really won’t.”

He nodded, looking strangely sad. “I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“Goodbye, John.” She turned her attention back to the inventory. She didn’t watch him go.

 

**

 

Molly went home, back to her silent flat. It wasn’t like she had anywhere else to go. Absently she called Toby’s name, and almost whimpered when she remembered that he was dead.

She hated her life. She hated it so much it burned.

Sod it, she was going to get another cat. At least something would be glad to see her, even if it only loved her because she fed it.

The nearest cat shelter was a half hour walk away. This pet would be a rescue, not a purchase; Molly felt that they’d have something in common that way. After all, they’d both been abandoned.

 

**

 

The shelter was a madhouse when Molly walked in. It was obvious to the trained eye that it was ordinarily a very tidy place, and that the thin veneer of chaos was just that: veneer. Still, it didn’t look like it made it any less stressful for the young woman who raced right past her, clutching a stunned-looking moggie.

Three steps past Molly, the young woman turned on the brakes and came to a sudden halt. She whipped around, giving Molly a jumbled impression of purple hair, and some serious iron-work studding a face that looked surprisingly pleasant underneath it all.

“Oh my god!” The moggie yowled pitifully and the young woman gave it a rough, reassuring stroke. “Oh my god I’m so sorry, I just went right past you, it was so rude of me, the place is such a madhouse right now.”

“Um, that’s okay. I’ll come back if you’re busy.”

“Don’t, please don’t! If you’ve come for a friend, please look around. We just had a hoarding case and we’ve got like fifty of them all at once and we really need the room. And the lady who does all the pathology called in sick and none of the rest of us are any good at it and we’re all so stressed right now.” She ran out of breath, breathing hard. Molly felt so sorry for her, she looked so frazzled.

“I…I can help with pathology…if you want. It’s kind of my job.”

The woman’s face lit up. “It is? You do all the blood and skin and, and, other things?”

“Yes,” Molly said shyly. And before she quite knew it she was being shepherded towards the door marked ‘no public admittance’.

“So you collect blood and stuff for a living? That’s pretty cool.”

“Sort of.” Molly straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. Might as well get it over with. “I work in a morgue. I do forensics and autopsies.”

The young woman with the purple hair stopped and stared at her, wide-eyed. “You mean you work with dead people? Corpses?”

“Yes,” said Molly, waiting for the inevitable cry of ‘freak’.

But instead the woman grinned broadly. “Holy shit,” she said, “That’s awesome!”

Molly gaped, utterly gobsmacked. “You mean you don’t think I’m weird?”

“Lady, of _course_ you’re weird. No one who’s _normal_ is worth knowing.”

And suddenly, Molly realised something: even though everything was all wrong now, there would one day be a point where it became right again. It’d take time. Maybe a lot of time. But that was okay, because that was just the way life was. She’d been working in a morgue for so long that the rest of her had become a mausoleum. Fluttering about a rotting mansion, moaning like Lady Havisham. She was alive. And she was going to make herself feel it.

 

**

 

The year turned, and Christmas drew near. Molly still didn’t have a boyfriend, which made her feel lonely. She wanted someone to hold at night and to watch soppy movies with. But she had good friends for the first time in her life, and that was worth a hell of a lot to her. Still, a boyfriend (or even two! Or three! Maybe even all at once, why not?) would be really nice. She’d joined a few dating websites and was hopeful.

Ten days before Christmas she went to a fancy dress party. The theme was hookers and pimps. Molly dressed herself up in fishnets and stilettos and bright red lipstick, a neon blue feather boa for contrast, looking like a complete slut, something which she found rather thrilling. Close to midnight the hue and cry was raised, because the alcohol stocks were running dangerously low. Molly and one of her friends were duly elected on the basis that they were marginally less pissed than everyone else, and probably wouldn’t drop too much of the booze on the way back.

They wobbled down the street in their stilettos, drawing whistles and leers as they went. Molly found herself loving every minute of it. Her lipstick was smeared and her hair was a bird’s nest and for once in her life, she didn’t care at all.

And then, she heard her name. At first she didn’t pick up on the voice because it’d been that long, but when she looked up she saw him:

Mycroft Holmes.

He was bundled in a coat that probably cost more than a month’s wages for her. He looked as dapper and elegant as ever, and he fixed her with an intense stare that made chills run up her spine.

“Molly,” he said again. He stepped gracefully towards her, an umbrella in his hand even though the skies were completely clear.

“Molly,” said someone else, tugging on her elbow. It was her friend, drunk as a skunk.

“You go on ahead,” Molly told her, “I’ll catch up.” A knowing smile crossed her friend’s face, and she waved and lurched off towards the nearest bottle shop at speed.

“Well,” said Mycroft awkwardly, “Look at you.” Molly attempted to smile. His hand darted out, smoothed a feather from her boa that was sticking out from the rest. She tried to step backwards, but she only swayed dangerously in her stilettos. The sky pitched and she looked set to land flat on her back. And then Mycroft grabbed her by the wrists, hauling her back upright. In those heels, she was almost as tall as he was. Eye to eye. And they were standing so close together. His breath, turning into mist in the cold, slid against her cheek like a kiss.

“Hello, Mycroft,” Molly said, trying to be casual.

“It’s been a long time,” Mycroft said awkwardly. When Molly tried to step back he gently took her wrist and held it. “Look, I just wanted… the way it ended. Between us. It was awful. What I did was awful. And I’ve felt so badly about it ever since. I just wanted to apologise.”

“Um. Apology accepted?”

 He gently stroked his thumb under her wrist, gliding into the heel of her palm. “I missed you, you know.”

Again, Molly tried to step back. And again, Mycroft tightened his grip until she stopped.

“Glad to know,” Molly told him, wondering how she was going to get out of this without making a scene.

“I’ve often wondered,” he continued, “How it’d have turned out if I’d stayed. If I’d not said such horrible things to you.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Molly said flatly, “Because you’d still be lying and using me.”

“Indeed.” A thin smile flicked at the edge of his mouth. “I do wish we’d met elsewhere. Under better circumstances.” Molly rather wished that they’d not met at all, but held her tongue. Mycroft bought her hand up and kissed it like an old-fashioned gentleman. “I really do miss you.”

And, right on cue, as if he’d somehow planned it all, it began to snow. Fat, white, perfect flakes drifting down, settling in her hair. The Christmas lights in the shops suddenly turned from garish to magical. Mycroft raised his umbrella to shelter her from the snow. And Molly realised that this, this was the closest thing she’d ever have to the perfect moment, the most beautiful thing that would ever happen to her in her life. It was something out of her favourite movies, out of her favourite books. A handsome, cultured man who could look after her and care for her forever, leaning down to kiss her.

It really was a shame that she had to ruin it, she reflected wistfully, as she lifted her foot and drove the heel of her stiletto right through the leather of Mycroft’s shoe, into his skin and down to the bone.

It turned out that he had an amazingly vile mouth when he was in pain. Who’d have thought it.

Molly stood there, watching with a great sense of satisfaction as Mycroft hopped on one foot. An ominous black car glided smoothly up to the curb, and an effortlessly elegant and beautiful woman stepped out. With smooth, efficient movements she ushered a whimpering Mycroft into the car and shut the door after him. As the woman stepped around she hesitated for the briefest second, looking back at Molly. She made a quick gesture before jumping in with Mycroft. As the car pulled out Molly could only blink in bemusement. She could swear she’d seen the woman giving her the thumbs up.

Right. Molly, little mousey Molly, timid little Molly, squared her shoulders and worked hard to stay balance. With the fiercest of determination she continued teetering on towards the bottle shop. She was a woman on a mission. She had booze to buy.

 

**

 

On Christmas day she drove out into the country, to the home to see her Mum. It was a lovely little place, quiet with a large and beautiful garden. She still felt guilty that she couldn’t take care of her. She loved her Mum the most in the whole world, but Molly really couldn’t do it. An elderly dementia patient needed twenty four hour care, care that she couldn’t provide. The best thing she could do was give Mum the best place she could find.

The nurses were wonderful. They’d given up their own Christmas to give their patients everything. They’d set up little separate tables in the garden for everyone and hired special caterers. Mum looked so happy. It made Molly happy too, but sad at the same time. She knew that this was the last Christmas they’d ever have together; she knew the signs, that Mum didn’t have long.

Mum talked and talked. She rambled like her postcards, disconcerting and strange, but beautiful at the same time. She talked about Molly’s father, who Molly had never known; about her own childhood with Molly’s grandfather; about that magical holiday that they’d spent together in France, all three of them squeezed into a little cottage they could barely afford to rent. And then, suddenly, Mum looked at her. Really _looked_ at Molly, seeing her in the here and now, not in the past.

“How are you, sweetheart? Really?”

Molly blinked, reached out and took her mother’s hand. It curled tightly around hers, warm and strong.

“I’m learning to be happy, Mum.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. It’s…hard.”

“Nothing easy is worth doing,” Mum told her. “Raising you wasn’t easy. But it was the best thing I’ve ever done. I worried so much about you! Not just because you were so much trouble. But because you made me so happy. I’d never loved anyone the way I loved you. I used to lie awake at night, so afraid because I didn’t believe that I could have something so wonderful and not lose it eventually. I thought I loved your father. It was nothing to the way I loved you.”

Molly began to cry. The tears ran down her face, into her mouth.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m losing you.”

“You’ll never lose me, Molly. I won’t let you.”

The grip on Molly’s hand loosened, and that absent, sweet smile came over Mum’s face, and she was gone again. She began to babble again, those strange, odd things that were sweet, even if they made no sense.

Molly wiped her face and, despite it all, began to smile again. Her mother had come back to see her, one last time. And Molly was so happy.

“Merry Christmas, Mum.”

 

**

 

The last postcard Molly ever got from her mother was a sentimental portrait of two children hugging each other in the rain. On the back was a tangled mess of ink; one of the nurses had had to write out the address. But amongst the scribble a few words could be found. ‘Love’ and ‘You’.

There was another postcard there for her as well. For the first time Sherlock Holmes’s spiky writing was clear and undisguised. It was another advertisement for Big Brother, but this time the message was scrawled in bright red ink across the front: _“It’s time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother!”_ And naturally, on the back was a fastidious credit: “quote by Mitt Romney.”

Molly burst out laughing. She laughed until her sides hurt. Then she wiped her eyes, made some popcorn, and put the latest rom com DVD in the player, before throwing herself extravagantly over the couch. She was staying in tonight. Not because she was alone, but because she wanted to be by herself for a bit. It’d taken a long time, but she had finally learned the difference. And life was pretty good.

 

**

 

Mycroft’s tactfully silent assistant handed him his antibiotics and a glass of water. Her name was Pandora this week. He hadn’t thought to ask why; it never struck him as relevant.

The warning lights, the little alarms, the red flags were popping up all over the screen in front of him. The bizarre stretch of peace the world had experienced was finally over. For the first time in months Mycroft felt the screaming boredom subside, the boredom that had driven him out of his comfortable little nest in the spider web of the security network, the boredom that had made him so desperate for stimulation that he’d decided on a whim to seduce a little nobody like Molly Hooper, instead of leaving the chore to a subordinate. It’d been more interesting than he’d thought. Miss Hooper had been rather harder to break than he’d anticipated, and even now he wasn’t certain that he’d managed to do it properly.

Still, he mused, looking at a shot of Miss Hooper taken from a security camera at Saint Bart’s, it had certainly been a valuable experience. He had learned that even the meekest of mice could bite, very hard. The lingering ache in his foot would make it hard to forget that fact for a while yet.

His hand darted out, quick as blinking, wiping away a speck of dust from the computer monitor. If that speck of dust just so happened to be at the exact place that Molly’s face was, well, Mycroft would never, ever admit to it.

Then he pressed a key and Molly disappeared. Time to move on to more important matters.

He didn’t delete the picture, though.

 

 

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> My first time writing past tense in a long time. Rather difficult. And yes, I know, mistakes, lots of 'em; I'm posting at the very last minute of the deadline, and before an extremely nasty trojan devours what's left of my hard drive in a last lingering whisper of "brrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaainssssssssssssssss"


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